


under the wine-dark sky

by pepperfield



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Background Relationships, Falling In Love Again, Families of Choice, Family Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Minor Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Minor Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Mutual Pining, Old Married Couple, Parent-Child Relationship, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Finale, Returning Home, Slow Build, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-02 23:17:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13328508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepperfield/pseuds/pepperfield
Summary: Davenport’s just looking for a home port when he asks for a guest room at Merle’s ridiculous new castle. He doesn’t expect everything else that comes along with it: the ceaseless pestering from his family, a deeply paternal pride for children completely unrelated to him and, worst of all, those inconvenient feelings he should have outgrown thirty years ago.It's exactly the abnormal life he never knew he wanted.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Showing up seven years late to the fandom with ridiculous post-canon davenchurch mutual pining fluff instead of Quality Content! This is set about a year after the Sweet Flips wedding. I'm not _100%_ sure where this is headed, but it's going to be a lot of IPRE family hijinx, probably. Please let me know if you have any questions/concerns, and thanks for reading!!

There’s no shortage of reasons why coming back to visit today has wound up being a questionable idea, but Davenport would consider _this_ to be the worst of them.

This being the expression on Lup’s face as she swivels toward him, her chin resting in her hands and her feet on Barry’s lap. “It’s happy news, isn’t it, cap?” and oh, how guileless she sounds, but ten years apart doesn’t change a hundred years of knowledge. Next to her, Taako continues his disinterested perusal through Magnus’ course catalog (for dogs), but Davenport has the ineffable sense that he’s listening just the tiniest bit more intently than before.

He clears his throat and takes a sip of his wine even though it’s only nine in the morning. They’re celebrating, after all. Apparently.

“Well, you know, uh, of course it’s happy news. Weddings are always cause for celebration. And, uh, it sounds like Hekuba’s been planning it all for a while now...”

“No, of course, of course,” Lup says patiently, still watching him as she taps her fingers against her cheek. “Everyone loves weddings.”

“Yeah, if the catering’s good!” Merle scoffs as he returns to his seat next to Davenport. There’s still dirt under his fingernails from planting flowers in the town center this morning. It calls to mind all the mornings when Davenport used to find him in his room, singing to his plants by the light of whichever star their latest planet orbited. “Mavis says the Coralhearts know their seafood, but, I dunno…nothing’s gonna top the food at Carey and Killian’s.”

“Hell no, it isn’t,” Taako agrees, and they fistbump.

“But, y’know, I’m happy for Hekuba. She’s got a good thing going with Gly- uh. Glurmel? Gl- her new man. Probably shouldn’t have taken so long to finally make the split official, but that one’s on me. Anyway, it’s done, and I’m finally a free dwarf again! I made you guys these to celebrate.” He reaches down into the pocket of his shorts and digs out six seagrass bracelets beaded with seashells.

“You made _us_ gifts to celebrate your divorce?” Davenport asks with a raised eyebrow, but he offers his left hand anyway for Merle to tie one around his wrist. It’s a far step up from the disgusting kelp piloting goggles he received during their beach year, as touching as the sentiment had been back then. It almost looks like something you could buy at the Bottlenose Cove souvenir shop. “This is actually really nice. Thank you, Merle.”

“Uh, since Davenport likes it so much, he can have mine too,” Taako says, followed by a quick “me too!” from almost everyone else in the room. Only Magnus, still building the world’s bulkiest sandwich in the kitchen, doesn’t respond. “It really fits your sailor aesthetic, and we wouldn’t want to take away from that, you feel me?” Taako tacks on, when Davenport shoots him a betrayed look.

“Wait, guys-” he tries to get out, but Merle’s already tying another bracelet on. 

“Yeah, really goes well with your man of the sea look, skipper,” he says as he finishes the second and begins attaching the third. He looks so pleased, his visible eye crinkling behind his glasses, that Davenport doesn’t have the heart to refuse him anything.

“Okay. Just leave one for Magnus, would you?”

“Anyway,” Lup says, a teasing curl in her tone, “it’s back down to just one spouse for you, Merle. Does it feel weird?”

“Well, you know I haven’t really been- wait. One?” Merle stops. Squints at her, and Davenport can see the metaphysical cogs turning in Merle’s head, one beat slower than they’re turning for Davenport because he realizes with sudden clarity what she’s talking about and almost breathes in his mouthful of wine. Shit. _Shit_. 

Barry must remember at the same time because he glances up from his book with a crooked grin. “Oh yeah, that time on the casino planet? Merle, you were officiating all those weddings-”

“Are we talking about the Cashtown Casino? That was fun,” Magnus pipes up as he walks in with his unacceptably large sandwich. “Remember that one time we all got super drunk? Barry fell in a fountain.”

“Smooth move, Barold,” the twins say simultaneously, before Lup shakes herself out of it and blurts, “Wait, never mind Barry’s wet and wild adventure, let’s get back to what Merle was doing.”

“No, no, I think we get the picture,” Davenport says hastily. He’s tempted to run away, but Merle still has a hand wrapped around his wrist as he’s combing through his spotty memory, trying to recall this travesty.

“Casino…? When was this again?” Merle asks the room at large.

“Uh, I think it was the one after the shitty lava planet?” Magnus says. “Don’t you remember; we had to get Lucretia into the high rollers’ club to win back the Light of Creation? Taako kept getting kicked out for using prestidigitation. Lup blew up four slot machines. I joined the nightly circus show for a few months? Ring any bells?”

Lucretia, who’s foregoing alcohol in favor of chugging coffee straight from the pot as she tries to sort out a convoluted zoning plan, looks up from her scroll to stare Merle dead in the eyes and rasp out, “Cycle 71. You won a stuffed squid in the kiddie zone. It took you fourteen tries,” before returning to her work. She always remembers the most pertinent facts for him.

“Haha, oh yeah! I hung that thing on the helm. L’il Inky. You still have that guy, Dav?”

“No, sorry, I think I lost it somewhere around cycle 90.” Davenport isn’t sure if he wants to put his head in his hands or chug the rest of his glass. God, sometimes he hates that he loves these people.

“Oof, now cycle 90, that one was a doozy,” Barry says. “Really hated those laser storms.”

Davenport nods; this he can agree with. “Yeah, they were a damn pain to fly through-”

“Holy fucking shit, you two were married!” Taako screeches as he sits up so hard his hat tumbles off. He’s pointing two shaking fingers at Davenport and Merle and his face looks like it can’t tell if it’s delighted or horrified. Everyone else spins to watch them, even Lucretia, who lowers her coffee pot.

Davenport shotguns the rest of his wine as Lup claps for her brother.

“Ding ding ding! Although, I’m pretty sure they’re technically _still_ married.”

“And not diplomacy-married, like all those other times; you just did it for kicks!” Taako is definitely leaning more toward delighted now.

“Hey, I remember that!” Merle exclaims, dropping the remaining bracelets on the table. “You proposed to me with the hotel bottle opener. I had to wear it on a chain of those free beads they were giving out.”

“That’s- that’s real classy, cap’n,” Barry says, trying to keep a straight face. Lup is doing no such thing, already laughing into his shoulder.

“It was the best I could do on short notice,” Davenport says, before he realizes that trying to defend himself will probably make the situation worse.

“Aw, why wasn’t I there again?”

“You saw Barry in the fountain and thought he was going for a swim so you dove in after him.”

“Oh, right, I think I was trying to catch a friend for Fisher.”

Taako turns to him. “Weren’t all those fish illusions?”

“Yep! I did _not_ have the mental capacity to think that one through that night. Should’ve gone to the wedding instead!”

“It wasn’t that exciting anyway,” Davenport says. “We showed up, went through the motions, then went home.”

“How would you know?” Lup asks, amused. “You were smashed off your ass, Cap’n’port. Cree had to hold you up during the ceremony. But at least you were awake. Merle was falling asleep at the pulpit. Except during the vows, when he came down to hug you. That was cute. And then he passed out on us on the way out. There was a lot of drool! Less cute.”

Davenport remembers the drool too, though he’d found it kind of gross and endearing in his inebriated haze. The rest is kind of a blur; he can only really recall that he’d been sitting in the pews with Lup and Lucretia and way too much alcohol, watching the proceedings and getting weirdly emotional about the unfairness of how Merle was still single even though he was helping so many happy couples. Probably he was also a little out of his mind from relief that they’d secured the Light with just a few weeks left to go. It all snowballed from there.

“Wait, Merle officiated his own drunk mistake wedding? Is that allowed?” Barry asks.

“Rules are for people who aren’t as good-looking as we are, babe.”

Merle hums a ditty under his breath as he leans back in his chair, tipping two legs off the ground. He’s wearing pink hibiscus blooms today that brighten the silver of his beard. They’d been buttercups on their wedding day. “Wow, I guess it does sound sort of familiar! How ‘bout that, Dav? Forty years smooth sailing; that’s pretty good!” He elbows Davenport genially in the side.

“Only ten more until our golden anniversary,” Davenport says dryly, pretending that this subject doesn’t make his heart churn like the riptide.

“Ha! Maybe you’ll get me a real ring next time, eh?”

“I’ll have to get you twenty rings at the rate you’re giving me these bracelets.”

“So was it ever made, like, official?” Magnus asks, giving Davenport enough reason to stop staring at his “husband” like an idiot. “Did you guys get paperwork done and shit?”

“Just one form. It was official enough for them to pull spousal privilege when we almost got brought to trial a few cycles later,” Lucretia says. “It’s amazing the kind of bullshit you can get away with when you’ve got the right papers.” The way she says it makes Davenport feel simultaneously proud and kind of frightened.

“We both signed the certificate,” he admits. “Though it would be gone with the Starblaster now. So, functionally, we’re both single as far as this plane is concerned. You don’t have to bother getting an annulment,” he tells Merle, who just hums back at him.

“The thing is,” Lucretia hedges, steepling her fingers together, “I did write about that cycle in my journal. In, let’s say, _sufficient_ detail. And when Fisher and Junior broadcasted our story-”

“Oh shit, everyone in all of existence knows that you two got hitched,” Magnus finishes for her. “Which, I presume is fine? Unless it’s not?” He directs this pseudo-question at them, and Davenport coughs.

“Well, _I_ don’t mind,” would be really stupid to say out loud, so he shrugs and says, “Makes dating pretty awkward, but other than that...”

Merle flaps his arms as he becomes unbalanced in his seat suddenly. “Wait, are you- you’re seeing somebody? That’s new! Are we, uh- are you gonna introduce this person to us- like you know, a meet the family kinda biz, or is this more like a friends with benefits thing?”

“Oh my god, neither of you is allowed to use that phrase in reference to yourselves, or each other, or anybody ever,” Taako hisses, arching away from the table.

Davenport grabs hold of Merle’s chair and tugs it forward to stabilize all four legs flat on the floor again. “What? No, there isn’t- that was a hypothetical, Merle. There’s nobody. Anyway, forgetting that for a second, does this mean your kids know?” He thought he’d been forming a pretty good relationship with Mavis and Mookie, considering he only sees them at most twice a month, but now he’s wondering if he needs to re-examine everything under this new lens. “Wait, is that why they don’t call me Uncle Dav?”

Merle, being no help whatsoever, just dismisses the subject entirely and pats Davenport on the shoulder. “Oh, no need to worry about them. They love you. All of you guys. It’s always, ‘hey, pops, when can we visit the magic school again?’ and ‘can we ask Magnus for a dog?’ The answer to that is no, by the way.”

“Still, I better go clear the air. Yeah, I should- I’ll go check in with them, see how they’re doing. Give them their gifts.” He stands quickly, seeing as this is his best chance to escape this conversation, and weaves around Lucretia, careful not to disturb any of her scrolls. “I’ll be back for lunch; no, I’m good on the sandwich, thanks, Mags,” he says when Magnus offers his breakfast.

“Tell ‘em they gotta be back by noon if they want those surfing lessons with Uncle Taako after lunch,” Merle calls and Davenport lifts his hand in the affirmative as he powerwalks from the room.

  


It’s a scenic walk down the cliff from the estate to the shores of the guild hall where the kids look to be shaking down Angus McDonald for lunch money. Upon closer inspection, it actually seems to be some kind of training session, with Mavis throwing concerned looks and instructions to Angus, currently being sat upon by her brother.

“Angus, you’ve got to roll him off you! Use your leg for leverage, and your arm to push him over.”

“I’m trying! But Mookie’s awfully- ow, okay, wait-”

Angus, though taller and slightly bulkier than he was when he first arrived at the moonbase, still struggles to knock over the painfully effective weight of the dwarf torpedo crushing his stomach. Mavis looks unsure as to whether she should step in. “Mookie, don’t pull so hard; you’ll dislocate something!” she scolds.

“I’m already goin’ easy on him! He’s gotta learn!”

Davenport is half-afraid he’ll have to levitate them all back to the house to be healed when Angus finally manages to flip himself and Mookie over and escape without losing a limb. He crab-walks with his hands a few feet away before collapsing, completely winded. 

“H-hey there, sir,” Angus says from his spot on the ground; Davenport waves back.

“Nice roll, Angus. Keep working at it.”

The other two notice Davenport at the same time, but Mavis, caught between deciding to help Angus up and preventing her brother from tackling Davenport to the ground, isn’t fast enough to grab Mookie’s collar, and he dives right into Davenport’s torso with a yell of “Dav! You’re back!”

He ruffles the kid’s hair fondly, wondering how he always manages to be covered in dirt, even when he’s only been in the sand all day. “Oof, alrighty, I can see why Angus was having trouble with you earlier. You’ve been training a lot with your dad’s guild, huh?” 

“Yeah! Why didn’t you do the illusion trick this time?!” Just to check, Mookie punches Davenport lightly in the side, to Mavis’ dismay.

“Because you almost fell into a rock and put your eye out last time, and I’m not going to be the reason everyone in the Highchurch family has to wear an eyepatch. Here, I got you something,” and he hands over the gift from his bag of holding. “It’s a yo-yo; I got it when I was in the Starfall Hills. Maybe if you ask Angus nicely he’ll show you how to use it.”

Mookie runs off happily with his new loot to harangue poor Angus, who’s a good sport and sits up, already prepared to explain. Davenport decides he should bring Angus a few extra books next time around for his personal library at the Bureau. He deserves it.

Mavis, seeing that they’re under control, comes over to give Davenport a hug, which he returns less stiffly each time it happens.

“Hey, Dav. I didn’t know you were coming home for Dad’s divorce party. I don’t even really know if this counts as a party, but the whole family’s here, and Aunt Lucretia said Dad told her to bring balloons, so. This is a thing, now.” 

“I was coming back into town soon anyway, and I figured this would be a good way to see everyone at once. Also, someone needs to be around to make sure your dad doesn’t rack up too many more party points.”

Mavis laughs, and they sit down on the sand to watch the boys attempt to yo-yo without hitting each other in the face. “I’m glad he’s got you looking out for him,” she says, and Davenport feels a rush of embarrassed pride.

“Well, comes with the territory, I suppose. And it’s only fair – he’s spent countless years looking out for the rest of us.” He could talk about it for hours, but literally no one would want to sit through that self-incriminating tripe, so he changes the subject. “Are you excited for the wedding? How’s your mom holding up?”

“Yeah, I think it’ll be really nice. She’s thrilled, and I think Glymeth’s a good match for her. Mom and Dad – I mean, I love them both, but it was never a good fit, and Mom deserves to be happy after everything, you know?” She draws her knees up against her chest, and Davenport nods.

“Definitely.”

“And Dad deserves happiness too, but I think- I think he always knew where to find it again, even if he forgot for a little while.” She smiles at him and Davenport _knows_ she isn’t actually blood-related to Merle, but there’s something about the way their noses scrunch under their glasses that makes it easy to forget.

He smiles back at her. “Of course he did. You two make him the happiest I’ve ever seen him.”

“No, not- well, yeah, he’s really been doing his best for us, and it’s great, but.” She tugs at the end of one red braid, looping it around a finger as she thinks. “He likes having you all in the house again. I think it reminds him of- of, um, before. I think part of the reason he wanted the big house was ‘cause he wanted a space that could fit his whole family in one place.”

It’s not a surprise, but it hits like one. Minus Lup and Davenport, they’d all made some sort of life in the interim, for better or worse, but after living around and atop each other like they had for so damn long, it’s hard to let go of one another. Maybe there’s a sense of relief in it, that Davenport isn’t the only one who feels this way. Even when he’s surrounded by sky and sea, he misses them like he misses the stars. Even as he aches to see more, to learn and to know and to feel more, he can’t help the phantom memories of having his crew by his side.

It’s why he’s come back ashore today.

He still needs to clear up the whole accidental marriage thing, but right now, perhaps because he’s still a coward when it comes to things like this, he lets it be. There’ll be time another day for him to talk to the children about it, to explain that when you care about someone as much as they all did for each other, sometimes you do weird, incomprehensible shit because you don’t know how to express those feelings like a real person. He gets the suspicion that Mavis might already kind of understand.

“We’re all happy to be here,” he tells Mavis gravely. “And you know he’d get more visitors if you could get him to turn his damn Stone of Farspeech off silent again.”

She laughs, a little bit wry. “Yeah, we’re working on that.”

They watch the crash of sea foam in silence together for a few minutes, the water a beautiful crystalline aquamarine. From the corner of his eye, Davenport can see that Angus has successfully taught Mookie how to yo-yo without tangling the string, and remembers his other gift. “Hey, I’ve got something for you too, Mavis. For your collection.”

Mavis carefully unwraps the tissue paper package he gives her and beams when she notices the sandglobe filled with pale lavender sand and glassy black shells. “Wow! Is this from Starfall?”

“Yep! Did you know they pave all their roads with glass? And they end every month with a bonfire to burn away bad luck? You would’ve loved the library festival, too.”

“You gotta tell me about it later. This is the best, Dav, thanks so much. I think this is my twelfth one now.”

“We can’t stop until you’ve got that whole shelf filled, right? C’mon, why don’t we get you and the boys back to the house. I’m sure your aunts and uncles want to see you. Lup says she’s thinking it’s about time you learned how to cast a fireball; I’m pretty sure she’s trying to get you to choose evocation as your specialty, but we both know illusions are the best, right?”

\--

Only qualified sous chefs have been allowed to remain in the kitchen, which, on occasion, includes Davenport. But today the twins are monopolizing Angus’ time, so all others have been banished to play ping-pong instead. Davenport decides, around the time that Lucretia and Magnus start glaring daggers at each other over the net and pointing their paddles like rapiers, that he’ll leave the peacekeeping to Barry and the kids, and excuses himself to go find Merle instead, in order to settle the other piece of business he came here for.

He checks first in the conservatory, but finds it empty, so he wanders out into the wildflower garden, following the stone path until he winds back around to the front of the estate, where he sees his host perched on a bench overlooking the beach below. Memories of another cliffside under a blue-white sun, another plane and planet, come floating back, though the conversations they had that afternoon are lost to the past now.

“Doctor,” Davenport greets as he approaches, doffing his non-existent cap.

“Captain,” Merle replies like always, giving him a little salute with his soulwood arm. 

It’s a tradition that started before the Starblaster had been built, when Davenport used to pass the good Dr. Highchurch at dawn on the quad, he on his way to the hangar, and Merle headed out to the serenity garden for morning prayers to Pan. It had continued even after they were selected for their mission, especially whenever it would annoy the young people most, like during group breakfast or when passing one another on the street while planetside. The first time he’d done it again after their long goodbye it had been in response to Merle’s greeting upon reaching the market square of Goldcliff they were clearing out that day. Merle had saluted, leading a few confused volunteers to follow along, and he’d responded as he always had, before freezing with his hand in the air grasping at the brim of a hat that he no longer owned. Before he could feel too sheepish Magnus had laughed and Taako had rolled his eyes, needling them for still addressing each other by title a century later. The habit had returned like a reflex thereafter.

“Get over here, come have a seat! You see this bench? I had it put here special to watch the sunset,” Merle says, kicking his sandals off into the grass nearby.

It’s a nice bench, cut from a large piece of driftwood, but it doesn’t look like Magnus’ handiwork. “Did you make this?” Davenport asks as he takes a seat a slightly-less-than-respectable distance away.

“Nope! It was that guy, Lord Sterling. Nice kid, terrible with a hammer. But he figured it out. I got him to build me that bar down there too.”

“You’re a con man, Merle,” Davenport laughs, and Merle shrugs, throwing his arm around the back of the bench.

“If you ever pop into town, you just go on ahead and tell the bartender all your drinks are on the house, alright?”

“You trying to make up for that time you threw a whole crate of my Ring City vintage right into the middle of a funeral pyre? Because it’s going to take a _lot_ to win back the crowd.”

“They wanted an offering! You were the only one with anything to offer!”

“Oh, like we didn’t know you had a contraband box under your bed! If anything should’ve been burned it was those Maiden and the Vine books of yours; god, those were fucking awful.”

“Hey, that was high literature! And you read at least three of them cover to cover, so.”

“You were bedridden and whining; of course I read you your horrible garbage fire romance novels. Yech.”

Merle heaves a nostalgic sigh. “No one did the voices as good as you, though there’s something kinda powerful about Barry’s rendition.”

“I think it’s the way he couldn’t hide just how much the shitty writing caused him physical pain.”

From behind them, the sounds from inside the house of several people yelling about table tennis swell before falling to abrupt silence, and they share a look before mutually reaching a tacit agreement that it’s not their problem to deal with. Down on the world below, they can see another boat pulling in to dock, not far from where Davenport’s own boat is tied.

“I see you took my advice,” Merle says with a grin when the blessed quiet continues. “Travelin’ around, changing up the scenery. It’s pretty nice, innit?”

“I mean, I think I’m as much an expert on traveling around as you are, doc; don’t give yourself too much credit here,” Davenport teases, and Merle waves his wood arm around.

“Sure, you’re good at flyin’ your ship and sailin’ your boat, but it’s the _lifestyle_ that I’m talking about, Dav! Living your best life! Seeing all the sights! Thinking about yourself, instead of your duty. You never could put anything else first.”

“That’s just the way it had to be, you know that. A captain can’t prioritize anything above the mission.” Even when he had known nothing else, he had known this, even if he hadn’t the words to express it. But in his moments of greatest weakness, it would slip his mind for just a moment. All those years of watching his family, seeing them live and flourish, and seeing them suffer and die, yet again – how could he think anything besides _you are my mission, not the light, not the hunger, but you_.

It’s why he can’t ever completely fault Lucretia for the choices she made; she’d loved them all too much not to take on the burden for herself. She had reshaped their objective, but it had always been the same goal underneath it all: stop the Hunger. Protect. Survive. 

The wind picks up, ruffling the grasses and the leaves, and Merle tilts his head back to look at the solitary sun high overhead. “Yeah. That’s why you were the best. Glad you’re not letting those amazing piloting skills get rusty, even if it’s just on that little caravel of yours. You’re having fun out there, right? ‘Cause I know you know how to have fun, even if you pretend you don’t.” He glances over at Davenport, concern hidden under his relaxed posture.

“Yeah, Merle, I’m having fun,” Davenport assures him, even as he tries to figure out to broach the favor he’s about to ask for. “I’m learning so much, meeting so many people. Eating all the local food, picking up some new languages. It’s been amazing.”

“Good, that’s good. You’ve been overdue for a vacation. And hey, if you ever want some light reading for your downtime at sea…”

Davenport kicks Merle’s foot gently, laughing. “No thanks. But, uh, I’ve got another request for you. A bigger one.”

There’s the briefest glimmer of surprise in Merle’s expression before he beams and stretches his arms outward in a gesture of goodwill. “Sure, hit me with it. What can ol’ Earl Merle do for you?”

This shouldn’t be awkward, considering the scope of everything else they’ve seen each other through, but Davenport still finds himself readjusting his collar and clearing his throat a few times before he gets to the point. “I’m not done with my travels yet, and I don’t know when I will be, but I’ve been thinking that in between trips, sometimes it might be nice to uh, have a place to come back to? L-like a home port. Somewhere to dock my ship and hang my hat, if, y’know, I still had one. And um, I was hoping you might be able to help me arrange-”

“You got it, skipper,” Merle interrupts. “Starting today, Bottlenose Cove is your home base. And if you’ve got the time now, we can go pick out which guest room you wanna claim. There’s a few choice ones on the second floor, but if you want a view the whole third floor is basically up for grabs.”

“Wait, wait a sec, you don’t have to do that for me; I’m more than fine renting out a hotel room-”

Merle levels him with a look over the rim of his glasses before rapping his fingers against the bench. “Davenport. C’mon. You’re family. We’ve always got room for you. Oh, uh, unless you prefer a hotel? All the resorts are top-notch, and I’m not just saying that ‘cause I helped rebuild them. I can probably hook you up with the penthouse-”

Davenport’s the one interrupting this time, before Merle can get it into his head that he needs to timeshare a honeymoon suite. “No, no, I’d be more than thrilled to stay at your fancy mansion. I just didn’t want to put you out, or get in the way of you and the kids.”

“In the way? Dav, there’s like eight rooms I haven’t even been in yet; I should hire you to figure out what the fuck they’re supposed to be for. I’m serious, after lunch we’ll set you up. Pan, the kids are gonna love this! They’re always going on and on about lookin’ out for your boat and they put up all your postcards in the study. You’re a popular guy around here.”

“You’re all pretty popular with me too,” Davenport tells him warmly, and he receives a hearty laugh in return. The sound still makes his pulse flutter and he hopes any color in his cheeks isn’t too evident. He might just be making the biggest mistake of his life, asking to board here.

The Bureau of Benevolence had offered him his quarters in the base, if he would take them back, even if he had no desire to work for the organization. And he loves Lucretia, despite everything, but he couldn’t stay anywhere that reminded him of his lost years, so he had hugged her and declined and set sail for three uninterrupted months, until the endless static that threatens to return on his bad days faded away into the background again. 

Magnus had told him that his house was always open to him, any time, and the twins said they’d be happy to host him if he didn’t mind reapers coming in and out at all hours. But as much as he appreciates it, they live too far inland to be convenient. He’ll make the trek there to go see them, but he can’t see himself making a home anywhere so far from the sea. That’s the public reason, anyway.

The secret reason is he’s not above crafting a excuse to come home to the person he missed most over the course of their story.

Half the other cadets in his training class had told him he’d be hoping one day for someone to return to during shore leave, and the other half had impressed upon him that love would forever be a fool’s game for someone like him. Military born and bred, in it for the long haul. If he got everything else that he wanted for himself, then love would be out of the picture, because how could someone aspiring for the stars ever have time for anything else?

But that’s just the thing. He’s had nothing but time.

Time enough for those feelings to take root without any expectations, and there, on that ship, across the universe and back it grew, until Davenport realized one evening that it was a part of him now, inextricable. After forty, fifty years, what remains is just one of many endless bonds tying him to the rest of existence, but if it shines red instead of white, that’s only for him to know.

He’s happy with his life. Happy with the deep, abiding friendships he’s built with all his loved ones, Merle included. And he thinks he has enough self-control not to ruin what he’s managed to preserve for years already, on nothing but a stubborn attachment to the veneer of professionalism he kept up. But, god, he’d forgotten what that smile did to him.

Merle claps his hands together, once, as if to settle the deal. “That’s that. You’ll love it here, I promise. Anyway, can’t have my husband living out in the street like a vagrant bard!”

Now Davenport knows for sure his face is turning red. “Aw, jeez, I can’t believe they brought that back up. We can go get that taken care of, if you want. We’d have to- there’ll probably be a lot of red tape to work through, but I’m sure there’s someone in Neverwinter who could get it done.”

But Merle just shakes his head. “Nah, it sounds like too much trouble. I already had enough of a time sorting out the papers with Hekuba; I ain’t dealing with that again any time soon. Lawyers, man! They’re all a piece of work, I’ll tell ya.”

“No more than biology slash religious studies slash dance professors are.”

“That’s slander, dammit. You take that back.”

“It’s like 10% slander.”

Taako’s voice booms out from the open kitchen window, “It’s lunchtime, slackers! Go wash your grubby mitts before you even think about touching anything. That’s you too, Lup.” 

“I think that’s our cue,” Davenport says, standing and waiting for Merle before they set off back toward the house. “How much do you want to bet they’ve already finished the hors d’oeuvres before we get in there?”

“Ha. We both know my little fireball’s got seven of them shoveled in his mouth right at this very moment.”

As they re-enter through the conservatory, Davenport drinks in the sight of all the intricate greenery and unusual flowers covering the whole room. But what catches his eye is a plant he’s already grown used to seeing.

“Oh, wow! You’re blooming,” he says, taking Merle’s soulwood arm by the hand to examine it.

“Huh! Wouldja look at that.” Merle peers down at his arm at the tiny pink blossoms speckled across the clusters of golden leaves that have unfurled. “It doesn’t usually do that, unless I’m communing real hard with Pan or something. I guess it’s just a good day!”

Davenport brushes his thumb against one pale flower, releasing Merle’s hand right afterwards before he ruins himself. “Yeah. It is. It really is.”

Across the threshold, he can hear the joyous noise that surrounds his family, and he grins. He’s got a ship, and he’s got a home. It’s a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to use the existing tags #las vegas wedding and #in space! but restrained myself. Barely!


	2. Chapter 2

It’s Taako who greets Davenport at the door when he arrives that night, after a month away in the Hawthorn Isles. He’s wearing a glittering robe over red pajamas, though almost none of this ensemble can be seen because he’s wrapped shoulder to toes in a puffy green sleeping bag.

“Hey, Cap’n’port,” he says through a yawn. “Coming home for a little visit? What’d you bring us?”

“Taako! I- I wasn’t expecting- I brought meringues?” He lifts the bag for Taako to peer into.

“Ooh, okay, break those bad boys out and let’s see if they’re up to snuff.”

“Aren’t you about to go to sleep?” Davenport asks as he follows a hopping Taako back into the foyer. 

“I was, but the bunk bed’s not done yet, so I’ve got time for a little midnight snack. Or two. Merle’s already heating up some pizza rolls, but whatever, we can make this a real shindig.”

Taako hops up the grand spiral staircase with an impossible air of regality considering he looks like a large worm, and Davenport just trails along, hoping the mysteries will resolve themselves if he waits long enough. He’s too wrung out from the choppy return trip to hunt down answers himself. They enter a room down the hall from the bedroom Davenport chose for himself, where Magnus is measuring the wall and wearing a familiar look. It’s the same stubborn glare he has right after he’s decided to go throw himself into the fray even though he knows it might not end well. Next to him lies a collection of wooden shapes that resemble parts of a bed.

“Yeah, Taako, this isn’t gonna work. I’m not putting up anything from Fantasy IKEA in a room like this. If you want a bed, we’re doing it the right way,” he says, crouching down to admire the decorative accents of the baseboard.

“Look, I know you’ve got your woodworking pride on the line, but it’s gonna take you months to hand carve a bunk bed, my dude, and Taako needs sleep _tonight_. Not three years from now.”

“We’ll work something out, then, but I’m not putting that thing up in our room! I can’t do it. Cap’n’port!” Magnus says brightly when he finally stands and notices him. “Good to see you. Tell Taako to love himself and let us burn this monstrosity instead of putting it up.”

“Mango, I love a good bonfire as much as the next guy, but I can’t _sleep_ in one.” He pauses, and mutters under his breath, “Or can I…?”

“You can’t sleep on _this_ either!” Magnus says with disgust, waving at the still unassembled bed. Ever since making a bed for Carey and Killian’s new home, he’s been on a woodworking kick again, crafting pieces for his friends in between working at his school. There’s a mobile that hangs over the desk on Davenport’s ship: it’s stars and sparrows and voidfish and the Starblaster in miniature, twirling around and casting shadows upon the wall whenever he writes his postcards by lamplight.

Davenport looks at the inoffensive pile of wood and shrugs. “It doesn’t seem that bad to me. Functional. We could work with this. Do you have a mattress?”

“Hello, greatest transmutation wizard in the world here? I can make a mattress.”

“Why don’t you just transmute a bed too?” 

“At this point, I just might! If this lug would suck it up and let me!”

“It’s going to be my bed too, Taako; so sue me if I don’t trust two planks nailed to a ladder!”

“Oh, c’mon, you’re taking bottom bunk anyway; you’ll be fine,” Taako pshaws, and Magnus throws his arms in the air.

“Bottom bunk won’t protect me when your bed comes collapsing down on top of my head!”

“Like I said, you’ll be _fine_. Your constitution score is off the charts.”

Davenport holds his hand up, trying to remember how Merle always used to wrangle the kids when they were fighting without pulling rank on them. Then he decides he’s not cut out for that level of emotional labor right now, and just starts shooing them to the door. “Alright, gang, why don’t we take this conversation to a different room? You’re both too worked up right now, and looking at the bed...parts isn’t helping at all. We’ll work something out when we’ve all cooled our heels a bit.” They both sniff dramatically but take a few steps toward the doorway.

“Hey, will you two goofuses stop yellin’ at each other and come eat your damn pizza rolls?” comes Merle’s faint shout from somewhere downstairs. “You’re supposed to be role models now, assholes! Stop setting a bad example for my kids!” Peacemaker indeed.

“You’re the one swearing in front of them!” Magnus bellows back as they head toward the staircase. He sees Taako hopping along and sighs, holding out his arm. “Come on, then. I got you.”

Taako scrunches his mouth as he deliberates, but does in the end hop into range and allow himself to be slung over Magnus’ shoulder like a burlap sack to be carried downstairs. “You hitching a ride on this train, Captain?” he asks, his head lolling around near Magnus’ hip.

“No, I think I’ll pass this time,” Davenport replies, falling into step next to Magnus, and pondering again all the scars he’s gathered in the last ten years. Scars earned through all the same reasons as they ever were, because Magnus may have grown and changed, but his heart is a constant. As if to confirm, the kid (and gods, he’s not a kid anymore; hasn’t been for so long) smiles down at him and flexes his other arm.

“You sure? I got a whole ‘nother arm free just for you!”

“I’m good down here,” Davenport says, but he reaches up and pats Magnus at the waist fondly as they spiral down the staircase together.

They arrive in the kitchen, where three dwarves standing around a hot tray of pastries leaking red sauce turn and exclaim simultaneously, “Dav!” Hearing it makes Davenport’s heartbeat skip a measure, just from the overwhelming sense of _home_ he suddenly feels.

“You’re back so soon!” Mavis says with a smile. She’s scooping rolls off the hot tray and dumping them onto a slightly misshapen ceramic bowl, probably made at the Chug ‘n Squeeze one of those times Lup and Lucretia took the kids out.

“It was an exciting month. Bordering on _too_ exciting, so I thought I’d come home to recuperate.” His voice almost stutters on the word home but he presses through it, in time to catch Mookie who comes barreling into him with his cheeks already stuffed with burning hot pizza rolls. Magnus, who’s already depositing Taako into one of the larger wooden chairs at the dining table, steadies Davenport’s back before he and Mookie both go tumbling to the floor.

“Now don’t go knocking the poor captain over, fireball; I dunno if his frail old bones can take it,” Merle says as he puts the bowl down in the center of the table. He’s still wearing his oven mitts, which have Taako’s face emblazoned on them.

“Which of the two of us gets the senior discount over at the New Phandalin buffet again?” Davenport snipes back as he pulls out chairs for the children.

“You’re only like three years away from that point. You’ve still got that spring in your step, sure, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hear your joints creaking, old-timer.”

“Oh, you want to talk about creaking? Break out the shuffleboard cues again and we’ll see who’s _creaking_.”

“Okay, first of all, you two stop that this instant,” Taako says, gesturing between the two of them with a fork Davenport didn’t know he had. “Second of all, where are the meringues? Bring out the meringues!”

The meringues are deemed passable, and Davenport relays his latest journey to the group as they enjoy their late-night snack. Magnus and Mookie wheedle an offer for Merle’s famous hot cocoa out of him, the kind he used to make every cycle around Candlenights, and his children follow him back to the kitchen to assist. 

While they’re out of the room, Davenport turns to the other two, who have started playing some kind of hand slapping game. “Boys, I’ve gotta ask – why are you all here? Is there something happening today?”

“Why, are you disappointed, _Dav_?” Taako asks, narrowing his eyes. He extends his fingers in a stretch before bouncing them gently on the tabletop; Magnus watches the whole display warily. “Didn’t want the kids in the house, eh?”

Davenport stares levelly back at him. “What? No, you know I’m always happy to see you guys. Except when you’re gluing something to my face, or trying to skateboard up the side of the ship with the local youths. You goddamn hooligans.”

“Hm. Likely story.”

“There’s no one else at Taako’s house right not,” Magnus explains, withdrawing his hand at lightning speed before Taako can smack him. “Lots of reaper business tonight, apparently. Some kind of necromancer cult?”

“Ugh, you just know Barry’s gonna get tied up in it for hours,” Taako says, pausing their game to stab his roll with his fork. “And Krav’s not going to leave until he knows Barry isn’t sneaking the research out, and Lup isn’t going to leave them alone together and risk another week-long debate about the ethics of possessing people’s disembodied limbs, so they’ll probably end up going out for waffles at four a.m. again and crashing a stolen chariot into a well. Which means I’m eating dinner alone and sleeping alone again.”

Davenport winces. “No Angus?”

“Lucretia gets Ango this week, then he’s back in the dorms again until the term is over.” He sounds moody about it, and Davenport feels a spark of guilt for forgetting this about Taako. In the early years, if they lost Lup he would seclude himself in their room, the light around him dimming more and more the longer she was gone. After a few decades, he would instead turn to his remaining family for the comfort of proximity, even if touch wasn’t always desired. And then there were the years where he would curl up next to Lucretia on the common room couch as she penned in their day’s progress, or doze off on Magnus’ shoulder at their campsite, or crawl into Barry’s bed so they could sleep next to one another while they waited for the person they loved most to return to them.

“So we’re staying over here tonight! I was already here anyway to help Merle build a toolshed, so we dragged Taako in too. Tres Horny Boys are back in action! I really hope the kids didn’t just hear me say that!”

“There’s no way you’ll ever say anything worse than what they’ve already heard from Merle,” Davenport laughs. “In any case, it’s good to see you. It’s hard to make an appointment with people in as high demand as you two are.”

“Aw, you know we’ll always make time for you, boss! Come over to Raven’s Roost soon; there’s a lot of people I want you to meet.”

“Orrrr, you could think about doing those guest lectures for me that we talked about. Our illusion specialist is good, but he isn’t, well, _you_ , y’know?”

“Give me Angus as an assistant and I’ll think about it.”

Following behind his children, Merle re-enters the dining room holding four mugs, each done up the way they used to take it. Whipped cream and caramel for Magnus, a peppermint stick for Taako, and one giant marshmallow for himself. Davenport’s looks plain in comparison, but one sip proves that Merle still remembers how he likes it: with a generous shot of whiskey stirred right in.

(“Can I still trust you to land this thing if I hand it over?” Merle asked, holding Davenport’s mug out of reach. He kicked his legs back and forth in the navigator’s seat, a wreath of holly perched lopsided upon his hair. There’d been a sprig of mistletoe weaved in there too, but it had ‘mysteriously’ vanished after Lup asked to borrow the headpiece for a few minutes to use on Barry. Davenport wished stupidly that it was still there. “Don’t drink and drive, and all that. It’d be a real shame for us to all die horribly on Candlenights, after getting the Light and everything.”

“Dr. Highchurch,” Davenport said, leaning back in his chair, hair and collar slightly rumpled because they’d all been hugging and drinking and singing all night already. “Are you implying that I am anything less than the- the most adept- are you saying that you don’t think I can- can fly the boat?”

“Oh, sure, you’re the best boat-flyer around for miles, Captain,” Merle laughed. “Excellent with your hands. But you’re looking more than a little tipsy already. Maybe keep us in orbit another day, is all I’m saying.” He handed the cup over, and Davenport clutched at it, feeling lost.

“You don’t want to touch ground again before we go? It’s- the day’s almost here. We’re leaving this year behind soon.” 

Merle’s faith was something he often joked about, playing fast and loose with his clerical duties when they didn’t suit his needs, even though it always held steady when it came down to the wire. Some of the more involved rites were abandoned early on, though other little tics remained constant, like a muttered prayer whenever they needed to fell a tree, probably drilled into him so long at Pan camp that they’d become second nature. The one new tradition Davenport had noticed involved gathering up a small mound of soil on each new plane once they had a moment of respite, and giving thanks to Pan for the opportunity to experience another world. _There’s beauty in all things that nature provides, even if it’s tryin’ to kill us_ , Merle would tell him. Davenport liked watching the ritual; there was something stubbornly, relentlessly optimistic about the whole affair that helped soothe his own frustrations.

“Yeah, there’s always next cycle. Besides, I’ve got plenty of dirt in my room. And everybody else’s room, if you believe their complaining.” There was a soft kind of wistfulness in his eyes as he stared out the window down at the violet-tinted atmosphere of the planet below. Tonight, his hands were clean, no stray leaves or grass stains anywhere on him. And there hadn’t been for several cycles. He’d left them too soon for that.

Davenport swallowed, his hands still wrapped tight around his cup, which was starting to get uncomfortably hot against his palms. Was he too drunk or not drunk enough for this? “Merle. I, uh- I’m glad you stuck around this year. I know the parleys are important – hell, I know I’ve been pushing you as much as anybody, too hard sometimes probably – but it can get tough when you’re not with us. We- we miss you, when you’re gone for so long.” 

Merle glanced back at him, that wistfulness flowering into something more complex. Weariness and hope and resilience all at once, and to make it even more confusing, accompanied by a smile. “Well, it’s not as lively without me always trying to get everybody dancing, is it?” he asked, self-deprecating to deflect like usual. “I’m glad too, to take a year off once in a while, but I’ve gotta go back again. John and I...I think we’re getting somewhere; I mean, as much as you can make any progress with someone in the Hunger. Maybe I’ll learn something useful soon. Can’t give up the opportunity, right?”

“You’re always useful,” Davenport blurted, catching on the easiest of the topics there to tackle, but Merle shook his head.

“There’s different levels of ‘use’, and we all know that I tend toward the lower end of the scale. And maybe I’m playing my cards wrong, but it’s- it’s what I’ve got, and even if it’s not the most tactical approach, it’s _something_. I’ve got something with the Hunger, with John- fuck, we might even be friends? I dunno. So I gotta go back. See if we can’t work a deal out.” He looked down at his hands, before reaching up to take his wreath off, resting it against the console. “Maybe I oughta go tonight, while there’s still time. Wouldn’t want to waste the year.”

Davenport scrambled to straighten in his chair, almost spilling cocoa on his lap. “No! Not tonight. Don’t go tonight. Let’s finish this round off without any casualties. Just this once.”

The corner of Merle’s mouth twitched. “That’s not very pragmatic of you, cap’n.”

He was right, of course, but they were over sixty years in, and after the cycle Lucretia had to finish alone...perhaps Davenport had grown more reluctant to let his crew mates risk their lives when it wasn’t necessary. Dying still hurt, no matter how many times they’d gone through it. Watching your loved ones die hurt just as much.

“Candlenights isn’t a time for pragmatism. It’s for celebrating. And I’d like to celebrate you making it through the year with us. So please stay.” He wasn’t pleading, but neither was he commanding. It felt painful either way.

“Stay for a party? You don’t have to ask me twice,” Merle conceded, but there was still a tenderness bruising his words. He did, however, settle back in his chair and put his wreath back on. “Cheers, then, Dav,” he said, raising his cup, to which Davenport clinked his own, with only minor difficulty.

By the time Davenport finally took a drink, the hot cocoa was more like very warm cocoa, but the whiskey burnt through him, drawing a fire through all the things he couldn’t say, even then.)

This time, there’s no celebration, no threat of imminent danger, and the chocolate tastes as sweet as ever. There’s consistency in some things, no matter the circumstance, he supposes. “You’ve still got it,” Davenport tells Merle. “I’d have thought you’d forgotten after all this time.”

“I remember the important stuff!”

“Like how old your kids are?” Mavis says, but Davenport can tell she’s teasing.

“I’m getting better at that, sweetie, I swear! You’re fourteen, right? Fourteen?”

“Yeah, Dad, I’m fourteen,” she says, laughing into her cup.

“What about me? How old am I, Merle?” Magnus asks with a grin, and Merle lobs a marshmallow at him.

Mavis gets to asking Taako and Magnus when Angus can visit again, and they discuss plans until it looks like Mookie might fall asleep in his seat. Davenport nudges him gently, laughing when his eyes slit back open to watch him suspiciously.

“Time for bed?”

Mookie’s already dressed in pajamas like everyone else in the household, wearing a burger nightcap instead of his usual hat, but he sits stubbornly back up and scrubs at his eyes. “Not ‘til Mavie goes too. I don’t wanna miss out!”

“I think it’d be a good time as any for everyone to go to bed. It’s way past midnight. Your uncle Taako is already in his sleeping bag and ready to go.” Mookie takes in the sight of everyone else around the table, the dark circles under their eyes and their relaxed postures and seems to come to some kind of conclusion.

“Oh! Sleep pile!” he yells, banging his fists on the table. “Let’s do a sleep pile! Can we, dad?”

Merle blinks at him before taking his cup away so it doesn’t shake to the ground. “Well, that depends on your uncles, I think. I know they were trying to put up that bunk bed upstairs, so I’m thinking they might want to stay in their room tonight.”

“No, fuck it, we’re doing a sleep pile,” Taako says abruptly. “I’m gonna give this one to Magnus; I didn’t come all the way out here to break my back on a couple of crummy planks when I could be snoozing on a pillow mountain instead. C’mon, Mookie, show me where we’re gonna do this.”

With that, Davenport finds himself piling up thick comforters and pillows across the carpeted floor of Merle’s main living room, wearing a borrowed set of flannel pants and oversized Camp Goodfriend t-shirt. Magnus artfully clumps a sheet to fill in some gaps in their mound before splaying out starlike across half the space. Mookie immediately takes up residence next to him, hugging a cartoony stuffed animal that looks awfully similar to the binicorn that Taako summons, and they settle in after Magnus flings another quilt over the two of them.

On the fireplace side of the pile Taako is rearranging his corner better to his liking, and tossing cushions he doesn’t approve of elsewhere in the mountain, before replacing them with some fancier ones.

“Mavis, you can have my extra pillow,” he says once their spot looks acceptable. “Goose down, silk covers, enchanted for optimal coolness; it’s got the works. Here you go, princess.”

She receives it openly, but makes a face that makes her look especially young without her glasses on. “Thanks, Uncle Taako, but you know you don’t have to treat me like I’m special. I’m just a regular girl.”

“Pshhh, if you can live with these chuckleheads you’re anything but regular. And if you’re related to me – well, then you’re basically royalty. If you don’t like it though, I can stop, kiddo. Whatever works best for you.” He pokes her in the forehead and she laughs a little, rubbing at the spot.

“No, I don’t mind. It’s okay with me.”

Davenport, eternally beholden to a sense of responsibility for these people, waits until they’ve all chosen their places before finding his own. He figures he can just slot in anywhere, but he feels the pressure of hands at his back, one flesh and one wood, herding him into the space next to Mavis.

“In you go,” Merle says, dropping a blanket into his arms. He himself lies on Magnus’ other side, already propping his leg up on Magnus’ knee, and waves toward the spot next to him impatiently as Davenport just hovers without committing. “What’s the holdup? You want a sleeping bag too?”

“No, I was waiting until you were all settled,” Davenport says, eying the option he’s been offered. This is fine; they’ve shared sleeping arrangements like this before. It’s just been a few years since, long enough that it feels almost unfamiliar again. But he’s not going to go and let his feelings make it weird, not with his _family_ here, for gods’ sake. “Everyone good? I’ll go turn off the light.”

It’s dark in the room when he finally squeezes in between Merle and Mavis, who’s already dozing off against Taako’s side. He keeps his hands steadfastly to himself, except to pull his blanket up further, but before he drifts off to sleep his thoughts linger on the warmth of Merle’s cheek against his shoulder. He’s shifted so that his head is resting near Davenport’s arm, and it’s equal parts distracting and soothing. But the wear of a hard day’s sailing finally catches up to him, and he evens out his breath before giving in to sleep.

\--

Sunlight tickles at his eyelids and Davenport wakes. It’s been a long time since he’s slept this far past dawn, and even longer since it was with these people surrounding him.

Actually, not as long as he thinks. It had somehow slipped from him, as memories do sometimes even when they’re intact again, that the first night after it had all been over they had slept like this, his family and the kids from the bureau and everyone they held dear, all entangled together on the floor of the hangar bay.

They’re missing a few pieces today, but it’s still filled with the same comfort he remembers. The spot to his left is already empty, the Merle-shaped space grown cool in his absence. Some part of Davenport is relieved that he doesn’t have to contend with seeing his friend tousled with sleep, doing that elongated back stretch he always did before shuffling out of bed. In the years between, Davenport lost some of the immunity he’d built up to all those obnoxiously charming quirks he’d memorized as thoroughly as he had the Starblaster’s maintenance regulations and approach procedures, and, well, anything about his ship, really. This is best for his soundness of mind.

After freshening up and changing into some clothes that don’t make him look like an overworked college student, he finds his way back to the kitchen. As he hoped, Merle is sitting at the counter, reading the daily paper. Comics, classifieds, and obituaries first, because his priorities are all wrong.

“Good morning,” Davenport says, sliding onto the stool next to him, picking up the discarded pages and skimming the Neverwinter culture section.

“And a good day to you, sunshine,” Merle responds, shaking his head in amusement at the personal ad looking for a magic butler. He sets it aside and leans over to drag a cup of amber liquid toward Davenport, who gulps.

Unlike with hot cocoa, Merle is universally bad at making tea, which they’ve all always found baffling considering his affinity for flora. His most palatable brew is his dandelion tea, which Davenport loudly declared his favorite several cycles in, to avoid having to drink anything worse. Now it’s grown on him, despite being bland at best, and he accepts his cup with the token amount of grumbling that Merle has come to expect by now.

“And this time it’s lukewarm, even! This takes the cake, Merle. Where are your customer dissatisfaction surveys? I want to lodge a complaint.”

“That’s what you get for sleeping in! What happened to the morning routine?” Merle says, setting a plate of biscuits before him.

The morning routine was tea and toast in the kitchen, a round of Yooker as the sun rose, then exercises on the deck of the Starblaster – the IPRE academy morning workout for Davenport and yoga and calisthenics for Merle. They would begin in silence and slowly but surely devolve into cracking jokes about each other, their current plane, the kids. Davenport would return to his quarters to shower afterwards, still thinking with some furtive embarrassment about the way sunlight seemed to cascade around Merle as he rolled and stretched and bent his arms into triangle shapes.

And sometimes, it was waking early under the cover of rain, brushing the ferns away from the hollow of their hidden campsite, and finishing the remains of what fruit they’d managed to gather the night before as they charted the day’s path that would lead them closer to the Light. Or it would be drawing open the curtains on the tiny window of the small apartment they’d rented while preparing to win the Light from those in power on this world, eating porridge and watching with fondness as Barry tumbled off the couch and Magnus tried to curl smaller around Lucretia’s leg and whatever stray animal he picked up out of the alleyways.

Later, it would be the awkward pedestrian shuffle dance they engaged in every time they passed each other in the Bureau hallways on Sundays, Merle smuggling a dozen fresh donuts and a cactus from who knows where back to his suite and Davenport carrying a fresh pot of coffee to Lucretia’s office. 

“Mornin’ Davenport!” Merle would say, box of donuts poorly hidden under an unfolded napkin. “Looking sharp today too!”

“D-davenport,” Davenport would reply, trying to convey something like _you look nice too_ , even though he’d usually still be in his ridiculous onesie. Then they would finally manage to scooch out of each other’s way, and Davenport would scuttle off to Lucretia’s room, wondering to himself why the static always got worse in these moments. Why he had blurred memories of someone else he used to greet like this under the misty orange-rose sky, someone whose face was lost to him like so much else.

They’d started a lot of morning routines.

“A hazard of retirement,” he claims, as he works the cricks out of his neck. “I forgot how hard it was to get out from under Taako’s arm. And Mavis still clings in her sleep.”

Merle smiles at that. “She does. Some days it seems like they’re growing up so fast, but then you see them drooling on some poor sucker’s knee and realize there’s still a lot of childhood left to cherish. I’m glad I stopped fucking around before it was too late.”

“I know you might not believe it yet, but you’re a good dad, Merle. You always were,” Davenport says, his tone lightening when he touches on the old joke they’ve all made too many times.

“Ah, you just think that ‘cause you were the tough dad,” Merle chuckles. “After you shut ‘em down, anything I suggested sounded great in comparison.” It wasn’t nearly so easy as that, wrangling people so deeply invested in learning and exploring and, on occasion, blowing shit up, but the team had been chosen because they just _worked_ together, and that central tenet held fast despite everything.

“It was a team effort. Tandem parenting.”

They eat their breakfast in companionable quiet, stirring the silence on occasion to trade quips about the more absurd articles and ads they come across. At one point, Merle makes a pun so bad that Davenport feels obligated to drop the remains of his biscuit right into the guy’s teacup, forming a soft heap of undrinkable wet paste that Merle doesn’t to hesitate to eat while doggedly maintaining eye contact.

Nearly half an hour passes before Magnus trundles in still wearing his boxers and shirt with the torn collar, scratching at his bird’s nest of hair. By then, Merle has started a pot of oolong that he sets before Magnus, who leans sleepily against the counter.

“The kids are still sleeping. I piled them on top of Taako.” Whether this is more for their sakes or Taako’s is left unsaid, but in any case, Merle nods cheerfully.

“Good work,” he says, clapping Magnus on the back and handing him the sports section and a biscuit. Magnus takes all of these offerings and starts back out of the room with a salute; when Davenport raises an eyebrow, Merle just shrugs and tells him, “I think he’s gonna go eat it on the roof. I see him up there sometimes.”

“I-is he okay?” Davenport asks, already half out of his chair. Magnus has always been the first to put his life on the line for the rest of them, always completely committed to his role as their protector, but when he needed his family most, they weren’t there for him. After Raven’s Roost, after Julia – Davenport isn’t going to let Magnus face something like that alone again. Nor Taako, or Barry or any of his crew; he’s still their captain, dammit, and like hell is he going to fail them, even after a decade off the job.

Merle rests a gentle hand on his arm, drawing him to a stop. “Yeah, I think he’s good. He says it’s so he can get an aerial view – scope out the best place to put the shed – but I think the big guy just wants somewhere he can think in peace. Pan knows I love my kids, but they’re not always the quietest bunch, ‘specially when some of the teenz from the guild are here too. He’s alright, Dav.”

Davenport has never been the type not to do his due diligence. He likes to corroborate facts with his own two eyes, if he can, but there are many different subjects for which he learned to rely on his crewmates’ judgment. For all his irreverence and inappropriate timing, Merle’s sense of others’ emotional states is usually spot on, so Davenport sits back down and finishes his tea, Merle’s hand lingering for a moment before he withdraws to go walk toward the sink with his cup and plate.

He starts in on yesterday night’s dishes, and Davenport hops off his own stool to lend a hand. When they’re about a third of the way through, soap suds up to their forearms and some stray bubbles floating through the air to land on their hair, Merle speaks up. 

“We’re heading out next week, me and the newest adventuring class. If you’re still around, we’d be happy to have you hit the road with us. Might be nice for the kids to learn something from someone with more civilized tastes.” The way he says it, with a sideways look and rubbing guiltily at the same spot over and over on the plate he’s holding, tips Davenport off.

“Oh my god, are you teaching children how to eat roadkill again? Merle!”

“It’s a useful skill! A good adventurer needs to know how to make the best of a bad situation!”

“At least tell me you’re teaching them like, some healing spells and orienteering stuff. Please.”

“Course I am, but here at Extreme Teen Adventures we like to go beyond the basics. And that means knowing when to wrap yourself in deer hide and play dead in the bushes.”

Davenport laughs, swiping at one of the bubbles on his forehead and only succeeding in smattering more suds across his brow. “I find myself concerned over the fact that that’s worked for you before.”

“But it _did_ work, and that’s why people come from far and wide for my expert tutelage. That, and I think they want to know if the rumors are true.” With a flick of his wrist, Merle turns the faucet back on, spraying away the remains of the soap on his glassware and their hands. 

“Which ones?” Davenport asks. Merle hands him a dishtowel to dry himself off.

“Any of them,” Merle replies with a wink, but since he only has the one eye, its effectiveness is minimal. Davenport tosses the towel at him, feeling terribly fond of this awful man.

“And I’m sure you don’t disappoint. I think I’ll be boarding here for a week or two, at least; that last trip was a rough ride back and I could use a little rest. But maybe I _should_ tag along. To check out these rumors firsthand.”

“Try and impart some of those scouting and sailing skills of yours while you’re at it.”

When Davenport makes to clear away the newspaper and their biscuit crumbs, Merle steps into his space, and he pauses, back against the counter, as Merle reaches over to dab away the few remnants of soap trailing into his hair. Resisting the urge to do anything stupid, he remains still under the soft brush of cloth, and gives Merle a quizzical look when he notices his expression. “Something wrong with my face?”

“Nah, you’re still a stunner, cap. No, it’s just- you’re going grayer than I remembered. I know we were making cracks about our age, but...we’re really getting older, huh?”

“Yeah,” Davenport says, looking at the creases around Merle’s eye that hadn’t been there at the beginning of their acquaintance. He looks at his own hands, calloused in new ways that are slowly becoming familiar to him. He thinks about the memories he can make now that never try to glaze over into static, and he thinks about the way he actually relishes the fear that rises up in him when his voyages take a turn for the dangerous, because death means something now. “Is it strange that I kind of like it?” he asks, and Merle smiles swiftly at him before tucking the towel under his arm and stepping away.

“Just means you’re happy to be alive.”

It’s true, Davenport decides. He misses it, sometimes, having a mission, having a driving force behind every aspect of his life, but this – he’s quickly growing used to this, a life built on making choices just for himself. A life where he can choose to take a step back, or to put his family first.

He folds the paper up and places it aside, then leads the way out of the kitchen, waiting for the comfortable sound of Merle’s footsteps falling in next to him. “Come on. Let’s wake the kids up; get the day started.”


End file.
